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Why Not?


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2006 May 16, 4:16am   24,370 views  230 comments

by HARM   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

realtorduderealtorlogoL

Given how low the barrier to entry is and how many licensed Realtwhores® are already out there (something like half a million in CA alone now), isn't the post-bubble aftermath a perfect time for me to study for my Realtwhore® license?

I know, I know... you're probably thinking: "Hey, isn't this the same guy who takes cheap shots at Realtwhores® every chance he gets? Isn't this the same guy who posts article after article about Realtwhore® deceit and trickery? Isn't this the guy who routinely characterizes the NAR/MLS as a monopoly and quasi-mafia crime syndicate?"

Well... yes, yes and emphatically YES !!! But despite my personal feelings about Realtwhores®, I'm willing to set all this aside for a very important reason: 6%.

Yes, if I become my own Realtwhore®, I don't have to worry about the inherent conflicts of interest, routine misdirection, lies and thievery that comes part and parcel of being represented by one of California's finest (unless I decide to rip off myself, that is)! Not only can I cut 3% --the buyer agent's commission-- right off the top for any house I decide to buy, but I will also have direct unfiltered access to the local MLS --without having to wait for Congress to de-monopolize it.

I can *guarantee* that I will do due diligence to ensure my client is well represented: ME !

I will be my own "agent of change" :-). This way, in a few years --when prices are close to bottoming out-- I will be ready to pounce fully prepared to tender my "insulting" lowball offer with information asymmetry working for me (for a change)!

So, the question is, how best to go about it? Should I take one of those local community college courses, or go the self-study route? There must be a flood of former Realtors® out there (about to become a tsunami) ready to unload their study materials on the cheap. Anyone out there have any suggestions?

I can DO this. Suzanne researched it.
HARM

#housing

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93   Garth Farkley   2006 May 17, 2:04am  

Last comment for DS.

94   Garth Farkley   2006 May 17, 2:07am  

DICK
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

CADE
Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable
thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should
be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled
o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings:
but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal
once to a thing, and I was never mine own man
since. How now! who's there?

Enter some, bringing forward the Clerk of Chatham

SMITH
The clerk of Chatham: he can write and read and
cast accompt.

CADE
O monstrous!

SMITH
We took him setting of boys' copies.

CADE
Here's a villain!

SMITH
Has a book in his pocket with red letters in't.

CADE
Nay, then, he is a conjurer.

DICK
Nay, he can make obligations, and write court-hand.

CADE
I am sorry for't: the man is a proper man, of mine
honour; unless I find him guilty, he shall not die.
Come hither, sirrah, I must examine thee: what is thy name?

Clerk
Emmanuel.

DICK
They use to write it on the top of letters: 'twill
go hard with you.

CADE
Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name? or
hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest
plain-dealing man?

CLERK
Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up
that I can write my name.

ALL
He hath confessed: away with him! he's a villain
and a traitor.

CADE
Away with him, I say! hang him with his pen and
ink-horn about his neck.

Exit one with the Clerk

95   DinOR   2006 May 17, 2:36am  

SQT,

I'm not too sure how much blogs influence anything but I definitely see their value. Nothing happens inside a vacuum and sadly that is what the American work place has become. You can't say anything regarding religion, politics, company policy, the company's stock, dating/marriage, cars, housing bubbles (OMG) or baseball. Other than that you are free to talk amongst yourselves!

I didn't intend to get nearly as long winded regarding 401K's (and boomers) but it is a complicated subject and I feel it is equally crippling to this country right now as the HB! It's the other side of the Debt = Wealth equation and every bit as perverted. One thing the PBS special was right about though, as far as boomers illusions of having a "comfortable" retirement (for most it is too late already).

96   Michael Holliday   2006 May 17, 2:44am  

***SERIOUS QUESTION***

Could I get a few opinions on the following:

I saw some decent looking double-wide mobile homes for $795 a month
fee, (I believe to rent the land they sit on) and a purchase price of about $159,000-180,000. They looked like a decent TEMPORARY alternative to high-priced BA housing.

Looks like ANY retention of value/equity over rent (even for a mobile home) would be preferred to just dumping it into the black hole of renting an apartment.

In otherwords, beside the stigma of becoming "trailer trash," isn't owning a trailer--a nice one--better than renting an apartment?

Any pros and cons welcome.

P.S. what about RENTING a mobile home? Looks better than an apartment. Maybe more cost effective, too.
Thanks!

97   DinOR   2006 May 17, 2:54am  

Michael Holliday,

I must have seen the same link for "351 BA Price Reductions" posted here! C/L said something like 175K and it's a home! "Up scale mobile home park". Well I can't possibly see what could be up scale about a MHP but whatever. I have a buddy that handles all of the REPO's here in OR,WA and CA for one lender. He's always bugging me to talk to my clients about "putting a deal together" so he can move volume. Usually we're talking about 15-35K per unit. They are mostly 1997 and newer and he will deliver. How a mobile home in the BA becomes worth a 175K is beyond me. If you want I'll get you his web address.

98   DinOR   2006 May 17, 2:58am  

Oh,

Btw, I see absolutely no "stigma" to owning a manufactured home (especially if it's paid for) but then again I live in Oregon. Before Bend, OR became a "hot property" that's mostly what people lived in. Some still do. Trailers don't become "trash" until you start slapping up McMansions next to them! Then the trailers gotta go.

99   DinOR   2006 May 17, 3:08am  

Mr. Vincent,

The good news just a keeps on comin'! I will agree, the DIY platform is already pressuring the 6% comm. and realtors are starting to feel the pinch.

100   DinOR   2006 May 17, 3:38am  

WWII,

There certainly are right ways and wrong ways to buy a mfr. home. I think you're right! Bought new, the depreciation is steep. Purchased used or repo'd they can represent a value. The space rent Michael spoke of was $750 a month, pretty spendy. Then I guess it depends on what that covers. When you total up your water and sewer, garbage, utilities, common area maint. and taxes it might not be that bad a deal (of course depending on where you live). If you picked up a repo and paid it cash this would be your only expense.

101   DinOR   2006 May 17, 3:45am  

George,

"IT" will always be yours! Yes you may now take full credit, and a victory lap. The "scenario" you describe above is exactly what the banks approach was to offering securities investments. The only difference you neglected to mention is that with all of the volume the banks will pump through the system "sales" will be assumed so they will be very low paid salary employees with nominal incentive packages so if they "sell" 1 mil for the month they will get an additional $250 that month!

102   edvard   2006 May 17, 4:12am  

Kind of sad,
But I can recall a time that I was really glad the stock market was doing well. Now I almost hope for a recession to possibly bring housing mania to a halt.

103   LILLL   2006 May 17, 4:29am  

George''
Well, you said that you didn't want it to be called 'the summer of Goerge', right????

104   LILLL   2006 May 17, 4:39am  

On trailer parks...
Yes I do have some knowledge on this since one of my best friends family is property mgr for over 70 "mobile home parks' in Cali.
It is big business a can be quite profitable.
The parks vary greatly.
There is one in Sacto that is more like a gated community than a traile park. My friend has a spare unit he keeps vacant for all of us to use anytime. It is about ten steps from the sand in Newport Beach.
Mobile home parks consist mostly of senior citizen, hispanics and lower income families.
They usually have a clubhouse, pool, often exercise room, etc.
Many have high standards of cleanliness and will evict the weird, drunken,crazy cat man with 100 cats living under his trailer.
(Not meant to be you Surfer-X ;))

105   LILLL   2006 May 17, 4:42am  

Blog party! Newport Beach!

106   LILLL   2006 May 17, 4:47am  

O/T
What this about $800mil just to investigate FNM errors???
Does anybody really think they can be trusted accounting for $800 mil when they bungled $11 bil??? They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent!
I mean, WTF?

107   edvard   2006 May 17, 4:59am  

Speaking of house trailers,
I think it would actually be cool to renovate and live in a 1950's all-alluminum trailer. There was one near us where I grew up and the insides were all cherry colored wood paneling, a decent kitchen, and a round porthole looking window on the door. The fact that they're all allumimum on the outside means they usually hold up for decades with little maintaining. It'd go great with my 55' Mercury. Maybe have a little matching workshop in the back.

109   LILLL   2006 May 17, 5:33am  

WW2
Wow...it's a beauty.

110   HARM   2006 May 17, 5:56am  

@SP,

I checked, but there are no comments stuck in moderation. As we discovered in the previous thread, certain strings or words are red-flagged as spam by WordPress, which results in instant deletion. One of these is "ci-al-is", which unfortunately also results in benign words like "so-ci-al-ist" triggering the auto-deletion.

111   HARM   2006 May 17, 5:57am  

LILLL Says:

Blog party! Newport Beach!

Seriously?

112   LILLL   2006 May 17, 6:10am  

HARM
Unfortunately no. The Newport Beach trailer is not a place I can throw a party...blog or no....
How about we all crash X's rental?
Do we have enough S.Cali people for a blog party?
I'm game!

113   HARM   2006 May 17, 6:20am  

X is in the Santa Barbara area, which is fine by me, but of course he has to give the OK first ;-). If I had enough room, I'd volunteer, but unfortunately I don't, being a jealous bitter apartment dweller and all.

114   LILLL   2006 May 17, 6:26am  

Hey X
Can we all party at your house?
I think you've invited us all over for tequila at one time or another.
It'll be BYOT
Bring your own tequila.
Or we can meet at a restaraunt somewhere in between.
Since X's attendance would be mandatory...perhaps someplace loud...so we don't get thrown out...though I hear he's 37% less offensive in person ;)
Any suggestions?

115   HARM   2006 May 17, 6:29am  

BTW, I asked the owner where the ‘yelling, fighting, car-door slamming freaks’ who rented the place went. He said they moved out to… wait for it… Tennessee.

Ughhh... nice to know CA is exporting it's "finest" to (currently) Bubble-free states. Gee, I wonder why other states have such a low opinion of us?

116   LILLL   2006 May 17, 6:33am  

-he's
+you're

117   LILLL   2006 May 17, 6:44am  

HARM
Are there many of us that live down here?
You and X. I think Joe Schmoe does.
Anyone else?

118   LILLL   2006 May 17, 6:46am  

I know on Ben's blog there are plenty....
but I'm not sure about this blog.

119   HARM   2006 May 17, 7:18am  

@LILLL,

I'd have to plod through the old biography threads to know for sure, but I believe us "Southerners" are in the minority here. (No surprise really, given the blog's name.) It'll take a while, but I'll try to see if the tally's high enough to plan something.

120   HARM   2006 May 17, 7:20am  

Another interesting mystery - the tenants left behind a garage full of plastic grocery bags. Just grocery bags stuffed inside other grocery bags. I have no idea what they were doing.

You can always recycle them into lawn furniture, I guess. Besides, I heard a rumor that they're not making any more plastic grocery bags.

121   Joe Schmoe   2006 May 17, 8:20am  

SoCal blog party? I'm in.

122   HARM   2006 May 17, 8:28am  

@SFResident,

I replaced your long URL with a Tinyurl because it was skewing the page --I'd highly recommend using it. It's free & very simple to use.

123   surfer-x   2006 May 17, 9:34am  

Hey X
Can we all party at your house?
I think you’ve invited us all over for tequila at one time or another.
It’ll be BYOT
Bring your own tequila.
Or we can meet at a restaraunt somewhere in between.
Since X’s attendance would be mandatory…perhaps someplace loud…so we don’t get thrown out…though I hear he’s 37% less offensive in person
Any suggestions?

Absofuckinglootly. Just let me know when.

124   surfer-x   2006 May 17, 9:35am  

My pathetic rental is prime partying. Great backyard, cool neighbors, when?

125   surfer-x   2006 May 17, 9:36am  

I'll be in San Diegho this weekend but next weekend is always game, memorial day. It's an A- list holiday though.

Who could attend? I live in $anta Barbara, on the Eastside man (pronounced maaaine).

126   HARM   2006 May 17, 10:29am  

X,

Thanks! We shall speak offline, after I gather more names & information. Stay tuned.

127   StuckInBA   2006 May 17, 10:55am  

Oracle mentioned,

Anybody notice that the NYSE collars had to be activated 2 hours into trading today? People are really spooked. We very well could have had a complete market crash today if the collars were not activated.

Forgive my ignorance. What are these collars ? How does one find out if the collars have been activated ?

Thanks in advance.

128   HARM   2006 May 17, 10:55am  

Those interested in the So. Cal. blog party over at Surfer-X's (possibly this Memorial Day weekend?) say so here with your preferred day (Sat, Sun or Mon).

If you provided a valid email address when you post (or logged in), I or Surfer-X can contact you with the decided upon date & time, what to bring, directions, etc. (emails are hidden to most bloggers, but visible to us). If it's a fakeroo, no dice.

129   Different Sean   2006 May 17, 10:59am  

What are these collars ? How does one find out if the collars have been activated ?

Electric shock collars...

130   Peter P   2006 May 17, 11:07am  

Blog party too far away……….

How about a NorCal blog party at the same time with video conferencing?

131   HARM   2006 May 17, 11:10am  

How about a NorCal blog party at the same time with video conferencing?

You know there are too many I.T. guys on your blog when...
:-)

132   HARM   2006 May 17, 11:12am  

Sunday or Monday's fine for me. I just found out I have a commitment on Saturday, so that's out.

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